Figure in Movement  Chapter One
by Halkon
Summary: Post DH story in which Harry muses on unrequited love from his youth.


Odd, Harry thought, that this should be a direct consequence of his death, that a man so bent on death and destruction could claim at least partial responsibility for such beauty. It had been one of the more unexpected effects of Voldemort's downfall, along with the vast upsurge in the number of births in the years directly afterwards that had led McGonagall to joke, thin lipped, that a new house would be needed to accommodate them all in eleven years time.

Harry stood, hands sunk deep in his pockets, in front of the vast canvas. It showed a man, limbs fleshy and twisted, his head nothing but a blur rendered in thickly daubed paint. The figure sat on a chair, a broomstick, leaning against a naked leg, the rest of the ill-defined body as pink as those legs but for the brown smudge in between them. Against a blood red background. Harry smiled at the memory: that white walled flat, the smell of the paint, the comfortable nakedness. Memories seeped in sunlight and drenched in gin.

He sighed and the form in the painting, startled, shifted its legs. He glanced briefly at the small plaque beside it, the words upon it already committed to memory. Well, almost: it spoke of how the painting conveyed the artist's wish to highlight the homoerotic nature of Quidditch hidden beneath all that machismo. Harry was just glad the subject had remained anonymous and turned away, leaving the gallery and its gently shifting paintings.

It was, Harry supposed, not entirely surprising that art should have seen such a resurgence after Voldemort's decline. War had always been a catalyst to culture, those muggle war poets for instance or that the dearth of Swiss culture could be attributed to their neutrality in every war since the decline of the Roman Empire. Not that it had only been painting that had finally been revolutionised beyond those Renaissance ones that lined Hogwart's walls; the ever popular poetry corner in the Daily Prophet or seemingly everyone working on their debut novel both evidence of it. Or even that Rowling squib publishing Harry's biography that had somehow leaked into the muggle world. Not that they'd considered it anything more than fiction: a few precautions and the wizarding world was as safe from discovery as it had ever been. Platform nine and three quarters, for instance, had been moved to Crewe. Harry could still hear the Minister for Magic: "No one will think to look for it in that hellhole."

Harry smiled, pushing open the door and turned up his collar with his other hand. Diagon Alley stood before him and he paused at the edge of it undecided. To turn left or right, to do his duty or to the welcoming arms oblivion. Always the good Kantian, he turned right with a sigh and, for his troubles, gained a glance from an old lady, who did a double take a few seconds later. Harry kept his face as blank as possible as she corrected her own and passed him. Happily, he supposed, these recognitions were becoming fewer with every passing year. He hadn't done anything noteworthy for the past twenty odd years and the wizarding world had its cultural heroes now, those old ones of action obsolete in these peaceful times. The Cultural Revolution had somewhat passed him by, not even allowing him the chance to reinvent himself. By the time he'd got round to scrawling several sheets of poetry his name, the only thing liable to get the things published, had already lost its lustre. Besides, the wizarding world already had its poet by that stage and it hadn't needed a second. Still, he thought, at least he had the opportunity to live through his son now. And he laughed bitterly gaining odd looks from a pair of intertwined teenagers, too young to recognise him, too stupid to link the boy they read of in their history books to the aging man in front of them. He smiled grimly at them, before turning into a small, commercial gallery. He blinked in its bright lights as his eyes adjusted from the twilight outside. A tray of glasses were thrust towards him and he accepted one, wondering if a lesser oblivion might yet be reached here as well, before scanning the separated groups arranged throughout the room. Hermione in a corner earnestly discussing foreign policy, Oliver Wood in another getting worked up over Quidditch with a bored looking Percy, Ginny looking old and tired next to Neville and Luna. Strange that they were the only ones of the original school couples to have flourished in the outside world, Harry thought, crossing the room to kiss Ginny's flabby cheek. "You're late," she said, "Albus was getting worried."

Harry didn't think he looked particularly worried, he looked too involved in Scorpius for that. Harry watched the black and white heads move together conspiratorially and was struck that this was further evidence to strengthen the truism that sons are destined to repeat the sins of their father. Felt sadness flood him with the realisation that his own sin wasn't there. Not that it was unexpected, but all the time he'd spent building up his courage to send that invitation, wasted. Afraid his emotions would show on his face, Harry said to the group at large "I'm going to look at the pictures," before moving to do just that. He stood in front of a woman who shifted uncomfortably in her frame, eyes and nose askew, the whole painting lacking any curves but rendered in a multitude of primary colours to make up for it.

A freezing cold hand gripped Harry's elbow suddenly and before he could turn to see its owner a voice said dryly, "Do you think he's heard of Picasso?"

Harry had no need to turn around now, merely smiled and said "I could ask you the same thing about Francis Bacon."

"You know he's no good."

"Sure," Harry conceded, still unwilling to turn round, "mediocre at best."

"But then so was I at the start."

"And some would say you still are," Harry said laughing.

"Only the ignorant," said the voice stiffly. And then in a rush, "Are you scared to look at me?"

Harry turned and took in the aged body in the instant before he embraced it and felt it bony, fragile beneath him. Where Harry had gained the paunch of middle age Draco had, in contrast, thinned to the point of almost non-existence. Finally, they parted and Harry took in the smaller details: the sunken cheeks, the cane clutched in his right hand, the skin thin almost yellow in colour. Only the hair seemed unchanged, perhaps a little thinner, as it had always been practically white to begin with. It seemed the stories were true, the issue Scorpio had been dancing around for months when he had come to the Potter's for dinner, Draco Malfoy was indeed dying.

Harry had always rather liked his delicacy, had secretly always hoped he would not grow old, had derived some odd pleasure from the idea, a hope it would preserve his youthful beauty forever. But to see him dying like this, all that beauty slowly overcome by disease, made him wish Draco had died as a venerable, haughty old man with his dignity intact. The sort of death Harry had always believed Dumberdore deserving of.

"It's been too long," Harry said hoarsely.

"Five years," Draco said, looking almost pityingly at Harry. Harry left unsure if he had warranted such a look because the cliché of his last statement or the emotion it was spoken with.

"Five years," repeated Harry, remembering the smug looks they had exchanged across the great hall at their sons' graduation: Scorpius walking down from the stage with the Quidditch cup in one hand and the medal for Divination in the other to hug his father and then remain standing to clap as Albus, Head Boy badge gleaming on his lapel, descended with his own in potions. The hug they had shared then, before settling back down together at the Slytherin table, was etched onto Harry's memory. The first time he had really considered that Albus and Scorpius might be in love, might be shagging each other, might be destined to make the same mistakes he and Draco had. And he had sat unmoving, unclapping as Rose had tripped across the stage, wearing the head girl badge to collecting the Dux of the school that in an ideal world should have been Hermione's before her, as shock and quite possibly jealousy consumed him. He recalled Draco hadn't clapped that day either. Probably down to his ambiguous feelings towards Ron and Hermione than the sight of his son hugging a Potter, Harry suspected.

Harry returned to the present as Draco shifted to look at the painting to the right of the first. Harry glanced at it: a portrait of Ginny this time heavily influenced by Picasso's blue period. Draco yawned and then smiled apologetically at Harry. "How much longer can we go on thieving from muggle culture?" He asked. Then bitterly, "What does it tell of us of our lives, our own problems?"

Harry suspected it was a rhetorical questioned but answered anyway "All these young wizards want is fame, Albus among them, and if they don't need originality to gain it so much the better. And it'll continue until wizards start visiting muggle art galleries."

Draco grunted amusedly as both their minds disappeared to somewhere during that summer, many hours spent in air conditioned muggle art galleries as a heat wave raged outside. Harry found himself in front of Sickert's _Ennui _in the Tate. Draco being Draco would be staring fixedly at the Sargent in the next gallery. Those two famous rivals, Sickert's insistence of painting only the working classes whilst Sargent's only limit was that the aristocrats he likened would be able to pay his bills. Their choice of subjects as different as Harry and Draco were in looks, temperament, philosophy. Harry, however, doubted Sickert and Sargent had settled their differences in each others arms.

Draco, humming quietly to himself, moved onto the next picture. Harry, still lost somewhere deep in his reminisces, was dragged back by the sight of the signature at the bottom of the painting. Albus Severus. Bad enough that Ginny had persuaded him to name the boy that, let alone the boy actually embracing it. Was certain Snape would've preferred an Order of Merlin, First Class than his name being joined with Potter and the Third Class one he'd received posthumously. Harry sighed and trailed after Draco, pulled up short by the loud shout of his name. Harry turned to see a dishevelled Ron Weasley weave towards them, pausing only to levitate a glass of wine clumsily towards him. "Christ," Harry heard Draco intone behind him, "how far the mighty Ron Weasley has fallen." Harry watched the ripples Ron's entrance had made: Hermione slinking towards the door, Ginny looking embarrassed, Percy elbowing his way through the now silent groups. With the smash of the glass and the loud "Whoops!" that followed it, even Oliver Wood was silenced. Ron merely shrugged, unaware of the stir he was making, and condescended to pick up a glass of wine in each hand before continuing his drunken way towards Harry. He stood unsteadily for a few seconds, as if trying to remember how to form a sentence, before saying "Have you seen Hermione, Harry?" he asked, burping nervously.

"Dear God," Draco said disgustedly as the stench of whisky engulfed them. Harry shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.

"Oh," said Ron dejectedly, before brightening as Percy appeared at his elbow. "Have you seen Hermione, Perce?"

"You're going home Ron," Percy commanded in his best prefect manner. "Now."

"But I need to throw up now," Ron answered apologetically, almost laughing. Percy swore then dragged him away to the toilets.

"When did the nation's favourite war poet become such an alcoholic?" asked Draco in a voice that came close to pity.

"The divorce from Hermione hit him pretty hard."

"The idea of losing Granger turning anyone to drink other than in celebration is more than slightly ludicrous."

"He was drinking before," sighed Harry, "partly the reason for the divorce."

"Only part?"

"Yeah," Harry paused. "I think Hermione hoped it would give him inspiration for more poetry. He'd sort of got writer's block."

"I was always surprised he had enough emotion to be a poet," Draco mused. "Always struck me as being a bit ignorant in that respect. Well, he was always ignorant in most respects."

"We all grew up a lot that final year. Ron finally faced up to the fact he was in love and that gave all he saw a profoundity that the rest of us missed in between all the death and blood and destruction," Harry paused, struggling for words. "Or at least that's how I always analysed it," he finished lamely, aware that he should really be defending Ron from Draco's slurs.

They stood in silence for a while then a wide smile broke out across Draco's face. "Granger being anyone's muse: the idea's absurd. No wonder he turned to drink." And he laughed. Which changed to a brutal hacking cough, finally subsiding as Percy reappeared looking grim with an apologetic Ron leaning heavily on him.

"I'll take him home if you like," said Harry unthinkingly.

"Are you sure?" asked Percy, immediately looking happier.

"Yeah, he's in no fit to apperate or flu and I have my car," plans flitted through his mind as he said this. It would give him an excuse to stay at Ron's, to escape the leaden silences with Ginny. Ron with plentiful alcohol he was unlikely to miss. And that vast supply of muggle books. He turned to Draco with an extended hand to be pulled into a second tight embrace.

"Come and visit me," Draco said embarrassedly, thrusting his card into Harry's unresisting hand as they parted. "Anna's out on Tuesdays."

Harry nodded and scanned the card. "You live in Edinburgh?" he asked incredulously.

"For God's sakes Potter, your son is barely ever out of my own's company; surely you must've been informed of my address at least once?"

Harry merely shrugged, unwilling to think about his awkward relationship with Scorpius, marred as it was before by events from before the boy's birth. Harry took Ron's arm from Percy and turned away with a mumbled "Goodbye," fully intending to destroy Draco's card as soon as he got home.

"See you Tuesday, Potter," said Draco with such finality Harry knew he wouldn't be able to enact that final thought. Harry raised a hand in affirmation, unwilling to turn around and see that feeble figure kept upright only by his father's serpent-headed cane.


End file.
